postscript printing from emacs

postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

Hello,

I have the following problem printing with ps-print-buffer:  The
printer gives me one page containing only the letters "IB", and a
second page containing the following:

PCL XL error
       Subsystem:  KERNEL
       Error:      IllegalOperatorSequence
       Operator:   0x1b
       Position:   2

ps-print.el version 6.6.7, emacs 22.0.50.  Any idea what this is?  If
the postscript file is generated using ps-spool-buffer instead,
Ghostview is able to display the file correctly, but the same problems
occur if I try printing.  I have even moved the ps file to my Mac, and
Preview.app is not able to display it properly.  

I take all of this to point in the direction of ps-print.el.  Any idea
how this can be fixed?  If an expert in postscript code wants to look
at the code, an example can be found on www.math.uib.no/stromme/psfil
(based on a buffer containing only the single letter "a").

As alternatives, I'm exploring ways to use a2ps or enscript instead,
but they don't seem to support utf-8.  Other ways?

Grateful for advice.  We need only very basic printing.  

(lpr-buffer itself chokes on non-ascii characters; this may be due to
a complex printing environment at my institution, where there is a
Windows print server.)

SA
-- 
Stein Arild Strømme            +47 55584825, +47 95801887
Universitetet i Bergen                  Fax: +47 55589672     
Matematisk institutt, UiB     http://math.uib.no/stromme/         
Johs Brunsg 12, N-5008 BERGEN         stromme@math.uib.no

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

[I wrote a moment ago:]

| I have the following problem printing with ps-print-buffer:  The
| printer gives me one page containing only the letters "IB", and a
| second page containing the following:
| 
| PCL XL error
|        Subsystem:  KERNEL
|        Error:      IllegalOperatorSequence
|        Operator:   0x1b
|        Position:   2
| 
| ps-print.el version 6.6.7, emacs 22.0.50.  Any idea what this is?  If
| the postscript file is generated using ps-spool-buffer instead,
| Ghostview is able to display the file correctly, but the same problems
| occur if I try printing.  I have even moved the ps file to my Mac, and
| Preview.app is not able to display it properly.  

I should add that the behaviour is consistent over three different
printers, with different drivers, in our department.

SA
-- 
Stein Arild Strømme            +47 55584825, +47 95801887
Universitetet i Bergen                  Fax: +47 55589672     
Matematisk institutt, UiB     http://math.uib.no/stromme/         
Johs Brunsg 12, N-5008 BERGEN         stromme@math.uib.no

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 23.03.2007 um 15:03 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:

> PCL XL error
>        Subsystem:  KERNEL
>        Error:      IllegalOperatorSequence
>        Operator:   0x1b
>        Position:   2

Your printer interprets the incoming stream as some PCL – teach it to  
accept PostScript!

>
> As alternatives, I'm exploring ways to use a2ps or enscript instead,
> but they don't seem to support utf-8.  Other ways?

Use htmlize to convert the buffer or region content to UTF-8 encoded  
HTML, view it in a capable browser, print from the browser.

--
Greetings

   Pete

"We have to expect it, otherwise we would be surprised."

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

[Peter Dyballa]

| Am 23.03.2007 um 15:03 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:
| 
| > PCL XL error
| >        Subsystem:  KERNEL
| >        Error:      IllegalOperatorSequence
| >        Operator:   0x1b
| >        Position:   2
| 
| Your printer interprets the incoming stream as some PCL – teach it to
| accept PostScript!

Well, all other postscript than the one generated by ps-print.el is
recognized and treated correctly.  That includes using a2ps og
enscript in various ways from within emacs.  I also find it suspicious
that Preview.app in OS X cannot display the file correctly (it does
with other postscript files).

So what is it about the ps-print-generated postscript files fools the
printer and Preview.app, that's the question.

| > As alternatives, I'm exploring ways to use a2ps or enscript instead,
| > but they don't seem to support utf-8.  Other ways?
| 
| Use htmlize to convert the buffer or region content to UTF-8 encoded
| HTML, view it in a capable browser, print from the browser.

That is tongue-in-cheek, surely?  

SA
-- 
Stein Arild Strømme                 +47 55584825, +47 95801887
Instituttleder                               Fax: +47 55589672     
Matematisk institutt, UiB          http://math.uib.no/stromme/         
Johs Brunsg 12, N-5008 BERGEN              stromme@math.uib.no

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 23.03.2007 um 16:41 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:

> I also find it suspicious that Preview.app in OS X cannot display  
> the file correctly (it does
> with other postscript files).

I reported this error before. Ps-print is pretty useless, in any case  
in Mac OS X. Besides this it only supports one or two encodings: US 7- 
bit ASCII and ISO 8859-1.

 From the failure with Preview you can deduce that the Mac OS X and  
CUPS related mechanisms to prepare the PS output for printing are the  
reason that your printer reports a failure. It's nothing but non- 
sense that gets into the printer queue. (You can halt the queue and  
inspect what's in it!)

>
> So what is it about the ps-print-generated postscript files fools the
> printer and Preview.app, that's the question.

I presume it's like MSIE "optimised" web sites: only Ghostscript can  
convert and only Ghostscript can display. So the function family  
should better, before release of GNU Emacs 22.1, be renamed gs-print.  
BTW, the PDF output gs 8.54 produces from ps-print output on my Mac  
(Mac OS X 10.4.9) cannot be displayed in Preview, either.

>
> | > As alternatives, I'm exploring ways to use a2ps or enscript  
> instead,
> | > but they don't seem to support utf-8.  Other ways?
> |
> | Use htmlize to convert the buffer or region content to UTF-8 encoded
> | HTML, view it in a capable browser, print from the browser.
>
> That is tongue-in-cheek, surely?

No. It's a proven way. And it's the only way a few members on this  
list could find. The (Japanese) Carbon Emacs (Package) uses such a  
conversion and then uses an adapted version of the Coral application  
to convert HTML to PDF. You can try to use Apple's /System/Library/ 
Printers/Libraries/convert – it is meant to prepare or produce  
printer queue material.

Lennart Borgman has written htmlize-view.el to ease the conversion of  
buffer or region contents to HTML, and view it in your default  
browser. Then press Print ...


The problem with PostScript is that it usually only supports 8 bit  
encodings. So you can't print Unicode. You can try to find a CID  
keyed PostScript font and with some effort you can print CJK. No such  
font is available for free or public domain. TrueType and OpenType  
fonts have better Unicode support. Modern PostScript can use such  
TrueType fonts, which are quite often free and acceptable quality.  
But I have no idea how to create a mapping from an UTF-8 encoded text  
to a Unicode encoded font in PostScript.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Mac OS X is like a wigwam: no fences, no gates, but an apache inside.

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> Am 23.03.2007 um 16:41 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:
>
>> I also find it suspicious that Preview.app in OS X cannot display
>> the file correctly (it does with other postscript files).
>
> I reported this error before. Ps-print is pretty useless, in any case
> in Mac OS X. Besides this it only supports one or two encodings: US 7- 
> bit ASCII and ISO 8859-1.

I should have stated more about my situation: I'm running Linux in a
centralized university environment.  Printing is via a cups server
which in turn talks to a Windows print server common for the whole
university.  My mention of Mac OS X is peripheral to the issue, it was
just a test naively trying to narrow down the search for the culprit.
Involving a Mac is no solution in any case.

> From the failure with Preview you can deduce that the Mac OS X and
> CUPS related mechanisms to prepare the PS output for printing are the
> reason that your printer reports a failure. It's nothing but non- 
> sense that gets into the printer queue. (You can halt the queue and
> inspect what's in it!)

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no control of the queue at all.

>> So what is it about the ps-print-generated postscript files fools the
>> printer and Preview.app, that's the question.
>
> I presume it's like MSIE "optimised" web sites: only Ghostscript can
> convert and only Ghostscript can display. So the function family
> should better, before release of GNU Emacs 22.1, be renamed gs-print.

OK, but both a2ps and enscript *do* work, in so far as the buffers get
printed, and even correctly, if encoded in 8859-1.  ps-print gives
nothing, even on the simplest of buffers.

>> | Use htmlize to convert the buffer or region content to UTF-8 encoded
>> | HTML, view it in a capable browser, print from the browser.
>>
>> That is tongue-in-cheek, surely?
>
> No. It's a proven way. And it's the only way a few members on this
> list could find. 

OK, I have no doubts that it works, but it is too cumbersome.  

I suppose it is a luxury problem for me, I don't *really* need utf-8
(I can get by with 8859-1), I simply want to try to migrate to utf-8.
What you are saying below about postscript and utf-8 gives me second
thoughts indeed.

> The problem with PostScript is that it usually only supports 8 bit
> encodings. So you can't print Unicode. You can try to find a CID
> keyed PostScript font and with some effort you can print CJK. No such
> font is available for free or public domain. TrueType and OpenType
> fonts have better Unicode support. Modern PostScript can use such
> TrueType fonts, which are quite often free and acceptable quality.
> But I have no idea how to create a mapping from an UTF-8 encoded text
> to a Unicode encoded font in PostScript.

It seems that I have two distinct problems: 1) ps-print does not work
at all, even for straight ascii, and 2) nothing simpler than your
solution works for utf-8 encoded files.

I'd still like to understand 1) better.

>
> --
> Greetings
>
>   Pete

Thanks for informative posts!

SA

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Stein Arild Strømme wrote:

> OK, I have no doubts that it works, but it is too cumbersome.  


If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I 
will be glad to change it if it is possible.

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

"Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> writes:

> Stein Arild Strømme wrote:
>
>> OK, I have no doubts that it works, but it is too cumbersome.  
>
>
> If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I
> will be glad to change it if it is possible.

Where can I find it?  Googling gets me some pages but some of those
download links don't quite work.  I'd like to try.  Perhaps it is more
convenient than I thought on a careless first reading..

SA

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Charles philip Chan]

On 23 Mar 2007, Peter_Dyballa@web.de wrote:

> I presume it's like MSIE "optimised" web sites: only Ghostscript can
> convert and only Ghostscript can display. 

BS, Ghostscript produces standard Postscript files.

> the PDF output gs 8.54 produces from ps-print output on my Mac
> (Mac OS X 10.4.9) cannot be displayed in Preview, either.

Don't know about Preview.app, the pdf files produced works in Acrobat
Reader, KPDF, GPDF, and Vindaloo.app (GNUstep).

Charles

-- 
printk ("scsi%d : Oh no Mr. Bill!\n", host->host_no);
        linux-2.6.6/drivers/scsi/53c7xx.c

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Charles philip Chan]

On 23 Mar 2007, Peter_Dyballa@web.de wrote:

> From the failure with Preview you can deduce that the Mac OS X and
> CUPS related mechanisms to prepare the PS output for printing are the
> reason that your printer reports a failure. It's nothing but non- 
> sense that gets into the printer queue. (You can halt the queue and
> inspect what's in it!)

Don't know about Mac OS X. However, I can print to my HP PCL printer
with ps-print and yes, I am using Cups (I am on Linux).

Charles

-- 
/* panic??  These should never occur in our application. */
        linux-2.6.6/drivers/scsi/aic7xxx/aiclib.c

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Charles philip Chan]

On 23 Mar 2007, stromme@math.uib.no wrote:

> I have the following problem printing with ps-print-buffer:  The
> printer gives me one page containing only the letters "IB", and a
> second page containing the following:
>
> PCL XL error
> Subsystem:  KERNEL
> Error:      IllegalOperatorSequence
> Operator:   0x1b
> Position:   2
>
> ps-print.el version 6.6.7, emacs 22.0.50.  Any idea what this is?

See this:

http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~henrik/GSPSprinter/GSPSprinter.html

Charles

-- 
"Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that
no conclusion can be drawn from them."
(By Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project)

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 24.03.2007 um 00:12 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:

>> If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I
>> will be glad to change it if it is possible.
>
> Where can I find it?


I've lost the URL, and Lennart forgot to record it in his htmlize- 
view.el. I'll send you privately a copy!

--
Greetings

   Pete

With Capitalism man exploits man. With communism it's the exact  
opposite.

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> 
> Am 24.03.2007 um 00:12 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:
> 
>>> If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I
>>> will be glad to change it if it is possible.
>>
>> Where can I find it?
> 
> 
> I've lost the URL, and Lennart forgot to record it in his 
> htmlize-view.el. I'll send you privately a copy!


http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/Emacs.html

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

[Lennart Borgman]

| Stein Arild Strømme wrote:
| 
| > OK, I have no doubts that it works, but it is too cumbersome.  
| 
| 
| If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I
| will be glad to change it if it is possible.

I did try it now, and I'm impressed.  Can't really think of much of an
improvement.  Thanks a lot!

SA
-- 
Stein Arild Strømme            +47 55584825, +47 95801887
Universitetet i Bergen                  Fax: +47 55589672     
Matematisk institutt, UiB     http://math.uib.no/stromme/         
Johs Brunsg 12, N-5008 BERGEN         stromme@math.uib.no

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Stein Arild Strømme]

[Stein Arild Strømme]

| [Lennart Borgman]
| 
| | Stein Arild Strømme wrote:
| | 
| | > OK, I have no doubts that it works, but it is too cumbersome.  
| | 
| | 
| | If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I
| | will be glad to change it if it is possible.
| 
| I did try it now, and I'm impressed.  Can't really think of much of an
| improvement.  Thanks a lot!

Turns out that there is a problem in Emacs 21.4 (Fedora Core release 5
distribution, started with -q option).  I get the following backtrace: 

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-number-of-arguments #[(prefix &optional dir-flag) "Á\x18ÁÂÏ„\x02
!ˆ‚\x1d
ÉÊÉË&\aˆÉ‡" [prefix temporary-file-directory file dir-flag make-temp-name expand-file-name make-directory write-region "" nil silent excl] 8) ((file-already-exists t))] 3 1390966] 3)
  make-temp-file("/tmp/htmlize-view" nil ".htm")
  htmlize-view-gettemp-file-name()
  (let (magic-mode-alist auto-mode-alist (html-temp-buffer ...) (file ...)) (set-buffer html-temp-buffer) (write-file file nil) (if htmlize-view-kill-view-buffers (kill-buffer html-temp-buffer)) file)
  (save-excursion (let (magic-mode-alist auto-mode-alist ... ...) (set-buffer html-temp-buffer) (write-file file nil) (if htmlize-view-kill-view-buffers ...) file))
  htmlize-buffer-to-tempfile(nil)
  (let* ((html-file ...)) (browse-url-of-file html-file))
  htmlize-view-buffer()
* call-interactively(htmlize-view-buffer)


In current CVS Emacs (22.0.50) everything works OK, but I cannot get the
university to distribute that to everyone..

SA
-- 
Stein Arild Strømme            +47 55584825, +47 95801887
Universitetet i Bergen                  Fax: +47 55589672     
Matematisk institutt, UiB     http://math.uib.no/stromme/         
Johs Brunsg 12, N-5008 BERGEN         stromme@math.uib.no

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[David Combs]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 547 bytes --]

In article <mailman.1355.1174729271.7795.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
Peter Dyballa  <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> wrote:
>
>Am 24.03.2007 um 00:12 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:
>
>>> If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much work I
>>> will be glad to change it if it is possible.
>>
>> Where can I find it?
>
>
>I've lost the URL, and Lennart forgot to record it in his htmlize- 
>view.el. I'll send you privately a copy!


Why not just post it here, onto this thread?

Sounds pretty neat, useful to lots of people here.

Thanks!

David

Re: postscript printing from emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 09.04.2007 um 10:49 schrieb David Combs:

> In article <mailman.1355.1174729271.7795.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
> Peter Dyballa  <Peter_Dyballa> wrote:
>>
>> Am 24.03.2007 um 00:12 schrieb Stein Arild Strømme:
>>
>>>> If you try htmlize-view.el and tell me what you find too much  
>>>> work I
>>>> will be glad to change it if it is possible.
>>>
>>> Where can I find it?
>>
>>
>> I've lost the URL, and Lennart forgot to record it in his htmlize-
>> view.el. I'll send you privately a copy!
>
>
> Why not just post it here, onto this thread?
>
> Sounds pretty neat, useful to lots of people here.
>

Here is a description, but the file is not available due to some  
problems: http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/Emacs.html


--
Greetings

   Pete

Some day we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any  
direction.